Sun add another former UConn player by drafting Faris in first round

UConn guard Kelly Faris (Photo courtesy UConn/Steve Slade)

UNCASVILLE, Conn., April 15 – For years, the Connecticut Sun have insisted they don’t select players from the University of Connecticut just to sell tickets to their WNBA games at the Mohegan Sun Arena. They pick the best available player to help their team.

In Monday’s WNBA draft, that player just so happened to be from Connecticut.

Just a few days after helping the Huskies win their eighth NCAA Division I national championship, the Sun drafted 5-foot-11 UConn guard Kelly Faris with the 11th pick.

Faris joins five other Connecticut players on the Sun roster – current league MVP Tina Charles, guard Kalana Green, guard Renee Montgomery, center Jessica Moore and All-Star Ashja Jones. However, Faris won’t play with Jones this season because Jones is taking the season off due to injuries.

Connecticut, which won the WNBA’s Eastern Conference regular season title with a 25-9 record a year ago, drafted two other collegians. The Sun selected Anna Prins of Iowa State in the second round and Andrea Smith of South Florida in the third round.

Faris will join a Sun team that fell to eventual champion Indiana in game three of the WNBA’s Eastern Conference finals a year ago and then fired long-time coach Mike Thibault a month later. Former U.S. Olympic team coach Anne Donovan was hired earlier this year to help the Sun win its first WNBA championship.

“I am determined to do whatever it takes to help my team,” Faris told WNBA.com before the draft. “I was taught to be a team player and whatever my role will be, I will accept it as a challenge.”

At Connecticut, Faris helped the Huskies reach the Final Four in four straight seasons. She was the Big East’s Defensive Player of the Year and leader in steals this season. She played with Charles and Greene was a freshman in 2010 when the Huskies won the NCAA title beating Stanford.

And Faris knows the road will be more difficult in the WNBA.

“With each new level the competition gets tougher and tougher,” she said before the draft. “Players become smarter and stronger than they were in college. Just as I learned when I got to college, I will have to learn to adjust again in the WNBA.”

Faris is the 13th UConn player to be drafted by the WNBA in the first round and 27th UConn player to be drafted.

Prins is a 6-foot-7 center from Iowa State that averaged a career high 12.3 points and 5.3 rebounds a game this season. In the post-season, she played even better, scoring 19.6 points and pulling 6.0 rebounds a game in five games for the Cyclones.

Smith is a 5-foot-8 guard from South Florida, who led the Bulls with an average of 16.3 points a game, including a career-high 35 points against NCAA finalist Louisville in February. She was a first team All-Big East selection. She finished her collegiate career averaging 16.4 points a game.

Training camp begins on May 5 for the Sun, who open their 11th season in the Nutmeg State by hosting New York in the first of three preseason games on May 11 at 7 p.m. at the Mohegan Sun Arena.

Connecticut will also play a road game against the Liberty on May 18 at 4 p.m., and close out the preseason May 21 at Western Conference champion Minnesota, facing the Lynx at noon.

The regular season begins with a game against New York on Saturday, May 25 at home.

Material from WNBA.com used to help compile this report.